


Perfect

by aries_taurus, Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Series: Ella!Verse [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Baby!Fic, Ella!verse, F/M, Family, Parenthood, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:03:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3196343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aries_taurus/pseuds/aries_taurus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s a father. He has a child. A daughter. Ella Margaret Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Simple Yellow Ribbon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2701322) by [Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna). 



> Hello all!
> 
> This is Aries speaking ;) 
> 
> This is a new fandom for me, and my knowledge is limited to the Avengers family of movies (CA, IM, Thor) and not any of the X-men films. I don't pretend to know all of the details of it.
> 
> Also, this work was inspired by the Tie a Yellow Ribbon series by Kavi Leighanna. We started discussing baby!fic a week ago, and Kavi came up with Ella. I got to borrow her and bring her into the world, so to speak. I don't know where this will go, and how much of a collaboration it will be, but this belongs in the 'verse Kavi created. 
> 
> This fast-forwards a couple years from the series.
> 
> Kavi checked this over for me, and remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> I do not own anyone nor do I make a buck off of this.
> 
> Aries

* * *

 

They tell him to take his shirt off, that newborn babies prefer skin to skin contact. He nods numbly and he just does it, not thinking, much too fascinated by the oh so tiny thing squalling her little lungs out in the bassinet nearby. They clean her up and suddenly she’s there, on his chest, curling into a snuffling little ball under the soft blanket the nurse drapes over them both. He’s held babies before, when he was a chorus girl, for pictures. Never one this small. Never _his._ Never in his wildest, most hopeful dreams.

He can’t… find words.

Instinct takes over and he puts a hand under her bottom, the other curling around her back. She lets out a small cry and he freezes, heart slamming in his chest.

“Did I… hurt her?”

He’s so strong and she’s so… small, fragile… minuscule, even.

“No. She’s settling. It’s hard, being born. It’s okay, Captain. Get to know her while we clean mom up.”

He nods, eyes on the baby still softly mewling on his chest; his daughter. _Ella._

He works up the courage (because he’s many, many thing but never a coward), shifts her a little so he can look at her face. He cradles her with one arm and raises his hand, his fingers brushing her porcelain skin and he can’t help the gasp at the incredible softness of it, at the utter perfection of her nose. She has dark, feathery fuzz on her head, dark, like her mother’s.

A tiny hand escapes the blanket and comes to rest by her face and he gently lifts it, impossibly small fingers curling around his huge one.

She sighs and opens pale blue eyes that seem to fix on his, even though he knows (from the classes) she can’t see that well just yet.

“Hi Ella,” he says, his voice watery, his eyes full, his heart overflowing with joy and sheer terror.

He’s a father. He has a child. _A daughter._ Ella Margaret Rogers.

Minutes trickle and he can’t take his eyes off of her, can’t stop staring and touching. Eventually, she mewls and cries and the nurse reappears.

“Mommy’s ready for her. She’s hungry I think. Let’s go see mommy, huh, sweat pea? You want to take her?”

He nods. The nurse shows him how to hold her and how to hand her to her mother, his wife, _Maria._

He gives her a smile, warm, filled with love, but he can’t find the words. ‘I’m so proud of you’ sounds like solider-speak, ‘I love you’ is… inadequate.

He finally settles on “Look what we made,” his voice full of the awe he’s feeling. “She’s…”

“Perfect,” Maria whispers.

There will be questions about that later but he refuses to think about it now; refuses to think about the Serum, about the future. Now, he focuses on watching his wife nurse his daughter. His heart is so full he thinks he’ll explode and those tears of joy and wonder can’t seem to dry off on his face.

Never. He’d never imagined he’d have this, not after waking up 70 years into the future, not after the heartache of losing Peggy, her love, the might-have-beens but still having her there, old and fragile and so lost it hurts to think about.

Contentment is not something he’s used to feeling and it takes him some time to recognize it as what this is; he’s content. He has a beautiful wife he loves with all his heart and that, best of all, loves him back and together, they have a small miracle of a daughter. There is nothing more he could ever want.

He takes Maria’s hand, slips his fingers into the one that’s holding Ella to her breast and Maria looks up, sweat soaked hair stuck to her forehead. She looks exhausted, happy and scared, just like him. She’s beautiful; disheveled with their baby on her breast, his daughter. He cannot gt over that one.

“I love you. You’re my girls,” he says, eyes sweeping from Maria’s face to Ella’s.

“We did good,” Maria says.

“Yeah. We did.”

 

* * *

 

It’s so late it qualifies as early when he leaves the room where his wife and daughter are sleeping. Sleep won’t come to him, he knows. He’s too wound up, shocked, happy, scared… He needs some air, to stretch out his muscles, to _breathe_.

He’s a father. A dad. He has a _daughter_.

“So? Boy, girl? Don’t keep the suspense or I’ll have Jarvis announce it to the whole world. I’m kidding. Just the whole of us. So? ”

The voice snaps him back to reality and he looks up, both shocked and not to find the waiting room of Stark Tower’s medical wing full of familiar faces.

Tony’s the one asking, but Dr. Banner, Natasha, Sam, Barton, Pepper and even Fury are there.

He faces them, a crooked grin on his face, not even attempting to present a semblance of anything other than smug joy.

“It’s a girl.”

 

* * *

 

There are chocolate cigars with pink ribbons on them, slaps on the back, laughter, pink onesies, stuffed animals, dolls, bibs, frilly dresses from everyone and an outrageously huge college fund from Tony. He’s overwhelmed. Happy, and completely overwhelmed. He needs to breathe a bit, before going back to his family. God, he has a family, now.

The gang leaves with the first hints of colour in the sky but he still goes out for some much needed air.

The voice comes from the deep, dark shadows of the alley a couple blocks from the tower and it stops him dead in his tracks.

“Steve Rogers gets married and has a kid before me. Dunno if I should be proud or jealous.”

“Bucky.”

He watches as his friend emerges from the shadows and shuffles towards him. He sees the stiffness in the movements and the pinched look around his eyes before Bucky steps close and engulfs him into a back-slapping hug.

“Congratulations, Dad,” Bucky says, laughter in his voice.

They part and Steve walks on, his friend falling in step beside him. “Dad. God… you’re the first one to call me that.”

“How does it feel?”

“Surreal.”

“I bet. She okay?” he asks and Steve knows what he means. Is she normal? Is she like us?

“So far. Dr Banner says we’ll know more by morning. She’s so… small.”

“Newborns tend to be. You work up the nerve to hold her yet?”

Steve chuckles. “S’not like back then. I watched her be born. They put her on my chest while they took care of Maria,” he explains as he heads East on 45th towards the diner 3 blocks down. “You hungry? I’m buyin’,” he says. “I think you could use some fuel to help fixing those ribs and that knee.”

Bucky snorts. “I’d have you buy me a beer or three if I wasn’t starving.”

“What’s the damage?”

“Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure.”

“So, how’d it go?”

Bucky sighs but doesn’t answer. Steve knows why he does this, these missions; the hardest ones, the messy ones, the ones that he might just not come back from. Both of them were raised Catholic in the twenties and thirties. You went to church. You went to confession. You atoned for your sins, so he knows this is all what this is about: atonement.

They walk to the diner in silence. They slip into a booth and both order the biggest breakfast they can find on the menu, along with a pot of coffee and tall glasses of fresh orange juice.

One thing they both agree on is how much better the food is now, especially the fruits and vegetables but neither of them understands the obsession over butter and fat in general, so they eat without remorse or restriction.

The meal passes in continued silence. Steve knows Bucky’s self-flagellation is ongoing, even now, after a successful mission. He would have heard about a failure, so he knows that whatever happened, it was a success.

The problem, Steve thinks, is that Bucky is trying to atone for the Winter Soldier’s sins. Steve doesn’t argue with it, knows it’s pointless because they’ve had this argument many, many times already. He may not argue, but he won’t let it pass without at least saying something; he’s stubborn that way. He does wait for the food to be gone before he speaks.

“Buck. That red in your ledger? Isn’t yours. And even if it was, you’ve more than made up for whatever sins you may or may not have done.”

“Steve-”

“I’m not finished. You’ve been fighting the past 70 years from the moment you got yourself back. It’s time you start looking ahead.”

He can feel Bucky’s anger building, see it flush his face under the paleness and the bruises and the grime.

“Whether you like it or not, that blood IS on my hands. I _was_ the Winter Soldier. He’s part of me, no matter how much I wish things were different. And… What the hell do you want me to look forward to huh? I’m _broken_ , Steve. I can’t be fixed. I can’t… bear to be in a room with more than two people for more than fifteen minutes. I can’t… I can barely tolerate someone touching me. How the hell do you want me to look forward? All I have to look forward to is…”

“Being alone. Believe me, I know what that feels like. It took me _years_ to find a way to connect. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about your Goddaughter.”

“My… Steve, no. I can’t. I…”

“Not your decision. So finish your coffee. You need to clean up before I let you near my daughter.”

“Steve, Maria-”

“It’s her idea. So come on.

 

* * *

 

 

He stays in the shadows of the doorway, watching Maria, Steve and that minuscule child in her arms. He gets lost in the contemplation and startles when Steve speaks, close to him.

“Put your hand behind her neck and make sure to support her head. Other hand under her bum. Now let her head rest in the crook of your elbow, other arm under her back. There. Bucky, meet Ella Margaret Rogers.”

He doesn’t have time or voice to protest and suddenly, there’s an infant in his arms, blue eyes blinking sleepily at him, tiny fists under her chin, so small, so vulnerable…

“You’re her Godfather. Your job is to protect her and to raise her should Maria and I not be there. But to do that, you have to be _here_. You have to look forward.”

He doesn’t have words. All he can do is stare at the tiny creature in his arms and feel something deep inside him stir, like a thick layer of soil cracking with a new seedling growing for the first time in over half a century because no matter how long it’s been, he still know what this is; love.

He feels a sudden, strong, fierce love for his Goddaughter and good heavens, for the first time since he remembered his name, he wants to _live_. He wants to be there to see her grow up.

He’ll protect her with his life if he has to.

“It’s a miracle,” he whispers, because there’s no other way to say it or explain it.

“Yeah. It is.”

 

Fin

**Author's Note:**

> So, tell me how I did?
> 
> I'm all for constructive criticism, but please be nice about it ;)
> 
> Also, if you liked my writing and watch Hawaii Five-0, please visit my profile and have a look at the 30 or so stories there.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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